Giuliani says Trump has 'no intention of pardoning himself' but 'probably' can
President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani appeared on ABC News Sunday to defend the letter to Special Counsel Robert Mueller published by The New York Times Saturday in which the president's lawyers sketched a robust view of executive power where the president by definition cannot obstruct justice. Giuliani was not Trump's lawyer in January, when the letter was written, but he deemed its arguments "excellent" and "very, very persuasive."
He also said Trump "probably" has the power to pardon himself. "He has no intention of pardoning himself but he probably — not to say he can't," he said. "I mean, that's another really interesting constitutional argument: 'Can the president pardon himself?'"
Giuliani was more circumspect about the letter's claim that Trump can "terminate the inquiry" at "any time for any reason," saying he "would not go that far." Watch the full interview below. Bonnie Kristian
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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